


apologies to the queen mary

by somethingdifferent



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Ambiguity, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, i thought this would be cute but oh god it ended up something totally different, this whole ship is just a ton of ambiguity let's be real, title taken from the album by wolf parade by the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:45:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3174096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy teaches Jarvis how to talk like an American.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>It's too obvious being English. People notice you more, they remember more details about you. And to be frank, your fake accent is just terrible.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	apologies to the queen mary

 

 

 

 

 

Peggy decides to teach him how to speak with an American accent.

"It's too obvious," she explains in the passenger seat of the car, looking over her nails, the perfect picture of nonchalance even as he navigates through some seedy part of the city, "being English. People notice you more, they remember more details about you. And to be frank, your fake accent is just terrible."

Jarvis glances over at her, turning his head just barely before snapping his attention back to the road. Any butler, or chauffeur for that matter, worth his salt knows to always keep his attention on the road - if not for the safety of the passengers, then simply as a means of avoiding chastisement. Yet Miss Carter, for all that he cannot call her by her name ( _too familiar_ , he thinks first, then, involuntarily, _too intimate_ ), does not sit in the backseat like any of his employers did, but at his side. They are equals, in a sense.

Even if he is still little more than the driver.

"I quite agree with you, Peggy," he tries out in his best imitation of Mr. Stark, and she makes a face.

"Oh god, no," she says, then adds after a moment of consideration: "And no red-blooded American male would use a word such as _quite_."

"Quite," he repeats in his normal voice, a little affronted by her contempt for his linguistic abilities. He knew he wasn't great at it, but he had thought himself at least competent. Jarvis is not used to being less than competent.

Peggy only laughs. "We'll work on that," she says, smiling.

 

 

 

 

What he doesn't understand, truly, is why he needs to learn this.

"You're the one doing all of the -" he pauses, unsure of how to phrase it, and for a moment his hand remains suspended in the air rather pathetically, "spy…things. I hardly ever leave the car."

"Sometimes you do," she replies flippantly.

"Like when?"

She considers this for a moment. "When I get hungry."

 

 

 

 

She gives him a list of words to work on, common things.

 _Car,_ he mutters to himself.  _Brother. Always. Stupid. Aluminum. Movie. Underneath. Vanish. Love. Indifferent._

He rattles them off, one by one, carefully to sharpen his r's, widen his mouth, end his words in crisp consonants and flat vowels.

_Heather. Wedding. Enjoyable. Strategic Scientific Reserve. Manifest Destiny. Paper. Perfect. Traitor. Glass. Limpingly. Aftershock._

Then the slang: a collection of syllables and phrases building up into an entirely different language, understandable even as it is meaningless. _Elevator. Apartment. Goddamn. Theater. Stroller. Sweater. Parking lot. Dollar bill._ Peggy goes through them with him painstakingly, after a few weeks pushing him to speak with the accent at any opportunity, sometimes nudging him hard in the ribs when he gets the terminology wrong, when he slips, even briefly, back into the lilting prosody, the soft edges.

_I'll have the salmon. You gave me the wrong change. Get out of my goddamn house. Please, believe me, I will do anything. I think I left the iron on._

And again, he repeats himself, pressing his voice flat until the words come out perfectly. _Weathervane. Radio show. Trespasser. Ignorant. Garage. Silent. Terrible. Agent. Treason. Murder. Dresser. Ring. Ankles._

"Nice work, Miss Carter," he says in flawless American English as Peggy examines the unconscious man at her feet.

 

 

 

 

Peggy kneels down beside the body, hunched forward, and he thinks, for one horrible moment, that she might cry.

"I'll call the police," he mutters, resting his hand on her shoulder in a move of tenderness so ineffectual he might as well have done nothing at all.

The entire time he spends on the phone, he can't help but think proudly that his accent has become quite perfect, even as Miss Carter gathers up the pieces of herself in the next room over.

 

 

 

 

As it turns out, he's something of a natural at undercover work when given the chance. On the telephone with the man at the SSR he was flustered, attempting to mimic a voice he encountered only via Mr. Stark and his associates - half of which consists of jargon he cannot understand and half of which consists of slang he refuses to understand.

Yet with Peggy at his side, holding his hand and smiling sweetly as she recounts to the gallery attendant how she and her doting husband had stopped by in the big city on their way to Albany, the lie is surprisingly easy to commit to. He ignores how easy it is to commit to.

(He ignores a number of things.)

"This place is just gorgeous, honey," Peggy demurs, scanning the walls as if studying the art but, he knows, instead searching for any sign of something amiss. She has a certain glint in her eye he has rarely, if ever, seen in another person.

"Wonderful work they've got here," Jarvis agrees, nodding ever so slightly in the direction of a man at the corner who tucks his hand into his coat pocket. "I haven't seen anything like this back home."

That part, he reflects later, as he sews up another (and another, and another) wound for her, was hardly even a lie.

 

 

 

 

( _Prices,_ he enunciates. _Crucifix. Towering. Head. Stricken. Hinderance. You. Loyalty. Wasteland. Semi-precious. Michaelangelo. Women. Verisimilitude._

 _Pour me some coffee, will you, darling?_ )

 

 

 

 

When Peggy deems him ready, she allows him to go back to speaking in a normal voice at most times.

"Now that you have the capacity," she explains, "you won't panic when you have to use it."

"Panic," he scoffs, adjusting his tie reflexively. "I hardly think it amounted to panic."

"From the way you described the encounter, Mr. Jarvis, it most certainly did."

In Mr. Stark's kitchen the kettle whistles, and he thanks God in His high heaven for tea instead of coffee. He retreats to the stove, even as on the couch in the living room Peggy laughs silently at her own joke.

He rolls his eyes, but he can't stop himself from smiling.

 

 

 

 

"I have to stop by a friend's apartment tomorrow," he tells Anna at the dinner table, another day, another lie.

Anna's knife clatters against her plate.

"His apartment?" she asks, and it's only then that he realizes his mistake.

"His flat, I mean," he says, but Anna is already pushing it aside and turning back to her meal, the whole thing already forgotten in her mind, "I have to stop by his flat."

 

 

 

 

( _Key. Trick. Hell. Fuck. Frigid. Jewelry. Punctuate. Original. Marriage. Fidelity. Commandment. Beautiful. Woman._

He said that one already - )

 

 

 

 

The girl at the counter looks him up and down, raising a curious eyebrow.

"I'll have a coffee," he says, his voice a monotone and his accent clean and sharp, "and a scone, if you have any."

The waitress, whose name tag reads _Angie_ , smiles at him, but it's concerning, for some reason. She smiles like she knows something he doesn't know and wants to keep it to herself for now.

"Coming right up." She tucks her pencil back into the fold of her apron and produces a cup from underneath the counter to pour his coffee into.

"English," she adds, almost absentmindedly, as she turns away to get the rest of his order.

 

 

 

 

It becomes synonymous with her, in a way. Speaking in another voice means the same as being another person - if Jarvis is another person, then he is not Jarvis, then there is no Jarvis, no Howard Stark, no England, no Anna, no Peggy - and the thought is enough to make him feel dizzy with relief.

He clasps her hand in his and smiles a smile so fake he wants to die for it.

"The place looks wonderful, darling," he says, his voice sickly and sweet, even as Peggy eyes the man who brought them to this house.

"This'll be perfect for us, Eddie," she gushes in a voice that isn't her own. "I can't wait."

She smiles up at him again, glancing pointedly at the owner of the house, and lets go of his hand to walk to the window overlooking the garden.

"I know," he says, and follows her to the sill.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
